SPN-Fanfiction - the trouble with fireworks
by spnfanfromeurope
Summary: In S5E16, Sam and Dean mentions burning down a field on the 5th of July 1996. What if John had found out? Trigger warning: belt spanking, alcohol. This is in my Abusive!John-verse, so it's pretty dark. I own nothing, just playing with the big kid's toys. And thank you to the anonymous reader who helped jog this loose from where it had gotten stuck in my brain. You know who you are.


Dean stuck his hands into his pockets and smiled.  
Sam was laughing, dancing under the multicolored stars, arms in the air.  
A happy Sammy meant a happy Dean.

One of the rockets shot towards the sky, fizzled weakly, then fell, still glowing, towards the ground. Dean saw it a split second before Sam.  
"Run!"

They ran like rabbits as the dud rocket fell straight into the box of, as yet, unused fireworks. The world exploded behind them and from a safe distance they turned, laughing, as every boy who has ever set off an awesome explosion, however unintentionally, will laugh.

Sam was the one who spotted the grass fire first. Dean was the one who realized that it was spreading too far, too fast and that they didn't stand a Chinaman's chance of putting it out. They ran again.

It was in the afternoon of the next day, the next round of fireworks was set to start. Not that they knew that, of course, when they walked into the rat's nest of a hired house. But as their dad slowly stood from his chair and in his quiet, controlled voice said:  
"So, boys…"  
Dean, per reflex, took half a step to the side, putting his shoulder in front of Sam.

Dad set his glass next to the bottle on the kitchen table. Took a step towards his boys and continued in that same tight, low voice:  
"Care to explain why you came home yesterday stinking of smoke?"

Dean opened his mouth, unsure what would come out, when Dad continued:  
"Before you say anything, Dean, you should know that the fire in the field was all over the radio. The whole field burnt down. The firemen found the remains of a box of fireworks, and some of the rockets looked homemade. I'm really interested to hear what you think about that?"

Dean swallowed, his mind running in circles. There was nothing he could say that wouldn't just dig the hole deeper, so in the end he settled for:  
"Sorry Sir. Sam didn't know about it, I wanted to surprise him."

"I'm sure he was very surprised," Dad said, still calmly, "Since I distinctly remember forbidding you to play around with fireworks."

There was a moment of silence, Dean felt Sam behind him, shifting nervously from foot to foot.  
Then Dad took a deep breath and segued straight into drill sergeant yelling.

What he said was basically:  
"What the hell were you thinking, you morons?"  
He just used a whole lot of extra words to say it, none of them very polite.  
The boys stood still, letting the torrent of words slosh over them, nothing to do but wait it out.

Just as Dad was nearing what looked to be a spectacular finishing crescendo, he gestured wildly, arms spread wide in a "what the hell" motion – and his right hand smacked straight into the almost full bottle of cheap whisky on the table.

The bottled rocked, wobbled and - in one of those sequences any instructor worth his salt would film in slow-motion, but which in real life actually happens so fast that you miss it if you blink - toppled over and rolled to the end of the table, hovered for a moment on the edge of the abyss, then suicidally threw itself off the table, landing with a thunk on its side, golden pungent drops flowing freely into the old stained rug.  
Everything stopped. The stars hung motionless in the sky and the Sun held her breath as John Winchester stared incredulously on the now almost empty bottle.  
In one swift motion he bend and scooped up the bottle, uttering a few choice words, that could have made a sailor blush.  
He looked with disgust at the last dregs of whisky, poured them into his glass then stomped abruptly off into his own room.

Sam and Dean looked at each other, almost reeling.  
There was a shared feeling of having stepped where the last step of the staircase should have been but wasn't.  
When Dad came back in, a full bottle in his hand, he just grabbed his glass, and slumped down on the couch.

Dean blinked once, his eyes focusing on the bottle in Dad's hand. Shit, he'd shifted to tequila. Dean felt his pulse speed up and his gut getting heavy.

He turned carefully to his little brother.  
"Sam, go to the library."  
"What?!"  
"Dad's right, we might have to move on quickly now, because of that fire. But he is in the middle of a hunt, so go read some books, find out about the town history, look for clues, you know, you like to do that nerd thing anyway."  
Sam looked uncertainly at their dad – " But Dean?"

Dean lowered his voice :  
"Just get out of here, Sammy. I can talk him down, if he starts up again. Particularly if he sees us being helpful. Come on, just go."  
"You sure? Wouldn't it be better if…"  
"No!" Dean took a deep breath. "Get out of here Sammy."  
He dug into his pocket and brought out a bundle of small bills.  
"Here", he gave Sam most of them, "bring back some dinner afterwards, cheeseburgers or something. Don't forget the pie."

"What are you two Dumbo's whispering about?" John asked grumpily from the couch.  
Dean half turned.  
"Yessir. Sam had an idea about the thing we are hunting. Might be a ghost, they had some pretty gruesome executions back in the day."  
John lifted his head:"Hm, not a bad idea, Sam."

Dean continued:  
"So I told him to go to the library, dig into the town history, and bring us some dinner after he was done."  
Dean turned back to Sam  
"Be back no later than 1800, okay?"

John was getting up off the couch and Dean added, in a low voice:  
"Come on Sam, go."  
"Dean…"  
"I'll talk him down. You know, I always can, just get out, go be an egg head. Go on, Samantha."

Annoyance overruled any hesitation Sam might have had about the situation.  
"Don't call me that!"  
Dean pushed his little brother in the chest.  
"Go on. Don't forget the pie. Princess."  
Sam shoved back as hard as he could, then turned and walked out

Walking down the street he was torn between annoyance at his older brother's incessant teasing and a feeling of abandonment.  
Dean was right, he was always able to calm Dad down. Whenever Dad got really mad, Dean was the one who would talk him down. Usually while Sam was sent on some more or less stupid errant.  
Would he ever be close enough to Dad to be able to talk to him like that? Envy wormed around in his gut as he wandered towards the city library.

"So Dean. Are you in charge here?"  
"No sir."  
"But you sure act like you are, don't you?"  
"No sir."  
"No? Giving orders to Sam, deciding what he should research and when, making up surprises, burning shit down? You wanna take the car keys while you're at it? Go off hunting with your brother?"  
"No sir."

The relief that had unknotted Deans shoulders as the door banged shut behind Sam was pushed aside as a his stomach twisted itself into a cold knot, then flowed down, down, deep inside trying to hide behind his bladder, meeting his stones on the way since they were busy crawling up into his gut.

Dad had been angry earlier, but now he was outright pissed off and that usually only ended one way. In bruises.

At least he'd decided to get good and truly pissed off before he got plastered.  
Sober John Winchester was an intimidating dude.  
Slightly inebriated John Winchester, as he was right now, was scary.  
Truly drunk John Winchester was completely unpredictable, which made him absolutely terrifying.  
Dean was pretty sure that there were monsters out there who told stories about his dad around the campfire at night to scare each other silly.

Counting his small blessings regarding the timing of this particular confrontation, Dean squared his shoulders and faced the storm.  
"Sorry sir."  
"Not yet, you're not."  
John pointed that the kitchen table and undid his belt.  
Dean turned, opened his fly, pushed down his jeans and bend over the table in one smooth, flowing motion, the heartbreaking elegance of his movements speaking of too long practice.

Then there was just a man, a boy, a belt, the sounds of leather on skin, and the pain.

At one point, Deans left hand flew back to cover a spot that had taken the tip of the belt over and over, until he felt a deep bruise swell under the skin. John didn't even hesitate, he just slammed the belt across Dean's palm, making the boy yell in agony.  
"You know better," he grunted, and Dean did. Oh, yes. He did.

A little later a particularly hard lash landed a little crookedly, just as Dean shifted his weight and the tip of the belt found its way onto his inner thigh. With a half-smothered squeal, Dean stood up, unable to stop himself.

His dad's hard hand hammered into the back of his head. He was grabbed harshly by the neck and slammed back down onto the table. Breath leaving his lungs in a helpless whoosh.

After that the rhythmic thudding for the belt degenerated into a wild-fire of chaotic agony.  
The leather was hitting him randomly everywhere from shoulders to knees in a burning torrent of misery.

The belt hit high on his back. Dean convulsed involuntarily, lifting an arm as he pushed himself away from the source of the pain. His dad grabbed his arm, twisting it behind his back, holding him down.

Dean squeezed his eyes shut. White stars exploded in the darkness behind his eyes.  
He suddenly smiled to himself. On the Blu-ray screen of his inner eye, he saw Sam turning, arms in the air, laughing under those brilliant stars. He held onto that image as he floated away from his body into the abyss, the unrelenting throbbing of the lashes overwhelming his mind, flushing away all reason, all thoughts.  
Dean went limb, sliding to the floor, his arm shooting aching pangs through his body, until his dad finally, mercifully, let go, just at the point where his arm would have been either wrenched from the socket or snap.

As Dean landed on the floor, he curled up, arms over his head for protection. It was fully expected when the belt kept falling, crisscrossing his body with stripe after stripe of pure, clean pain.

After about three lifetimes of twirling, whirling, dancing icy-hot flames hammering into his body, Dad finally grunted and with a vague sense of relief, Dean heard the rustle of clothes as Dad slid the belt back on.

It was over, he was still breathing, heaving, actually, his face a sticky mess of tears and saliva, but it was over. For this time.

"See that you learn who's in charge, you hear me?"  
When Dean didn't answer quickly enough, a booth thudded into his ribs with scientific precision, not hard enough to break a rib, just hard enough to take his breath away and leave a purple bruise in the morning for remembrance.  
"Yes sir." he whisper-shouted as best he could.  
"Well then, get up, and go clean the shotguns. Give my rifle some attention too, while you're at it."  
"Yes sir," Dean managed as he staggered to his feet, dizzy and disoriented.  
Dad shot him an annoyed look. "Go get cleaned up. You're a mess."

When Sam walked into the house, it was quiet, peaceful.  
Dad was on the couch, the steady ritsch-ritsch of a carborundum stone teasing out the perfect edge on a blade.  
Dean was standing by the kitchen table, an array of guns in front of him, the smell of oil poignant in the air.  
The radio was turned to some country station, hard to find anything else in these parts. Holly Dunn's pure, bright voice flowed through the air:  
"… _reaching out to hold me when I had a nightmare_  
 _You could read quite a story in the calluses and lines_  
 _Years of work and worry had left their mark behind_ "

Sam put the paper bag on the table.  
"I'm sorry, Dean, I got three cheeseburgers but there wasn't enough for a pie too."  
Sam handed Dean the single dollar change.  
Dean smiled and gave it back to him.  
"It's ok, Sammy, forget it, keep the change."

Dad looked up: "What'd you find?"

"A guy called McDuff was stoned to death. A false accusation, whole town went bonkers. A mob took him down. He's buried out on the old cemetery, might be worth looking into."  
"Ok, that's a help. I'll go tonight, then we can maybe move on tomorrow. Pack up before you go to bed."  
"Yes sir."  
"Will do, sir."

Sam set a cheeseburger in front of Dad, who grunted a thanks, and dug in.  
Dean shook his head when Sam started to move the guns.  
"Never mind Sammy, I'll put them away when I'm done. Just put the burger here, I'll eat while I work."

Sam looked from Dean to Dad and realized that Dean was probably cleaning guns as a punishment for the fireworks incident. Which had been awesome. He smiled at Dean, a wide, innocent, carefree smile of pure happiness.  
"Thank you, Dean. It was great," he murmured.  
Dean smiled back at him, green eyes warm.  
"Oh, shut up, bitch."  
"Jerk" Sam answered, and started reassembling the gun Dean had just finished cleaning.


End file.
